LATEST ADDITIONS

The Ayon Audio room used a pair of gracefully curved LumenWhite Artisan speakers ($35,000/pair) with the Ayon Orthos II monoblock amplifiers ($24,000/pair) and the Ayon CD-5 CD Player with integrated preamplifier ($11,380). The CD-5 features USB, AES/EBU, S/PDIF, i²S and Toslink inputs and S/PDIF (RCA), i²S, and AES/EBU digital outputs. Cable was from Synergistic Research and the equipment rack was the Bassocontinuo ($10,000) from Italy, shown here with German Plexiglas shelves. Around the room you’ll also notice the Synergistic Research Art devices inviting comment.

I noted a very strong center image, lots of body/weight, and a physical yet nimble presentation.

San Pedro, CA-based retailer Audio Summa brought along a bunch of gear from Silverline Audio, Conrad-Johnson, Parasound, Brown Electronic Labs (BEL), Blue Circle Audio, and Analysis Plus. While I was in-room, we listened to the Silverline Audio Bolero Supreme loudspeakers ($12,000/pair standing on the inside in the picture), BEL 1001 MkIV class-A solid-state amplifier (not for sale), a tube-based preamp designed and built by Alan Yun of Silverline Audio ($20,000) and the Ecstasy Model 20 tube CD player also from the mind and hands of Alan Yun ($12,000). Cables were from Analysis Plus and BEL "The Wire." The sound in the Audio Summa room was fast and a bit furious, leaving little time for decay. "Pace-y" read my notes.

More to get excited about: FatCat Records, the Brighton, UK-based label, home to some of my favorite bands and artists (Hauschka, Animal Collective, Black Dice, Johann Johannsson, Sylvain Chauveau, to name a few), has announced the new Palmist imprint, “a project dedicated to releasing limited, vinyl-only runs of artists we love who are home-recorded or otherwise steeped in the DIY tradition.”

The first three releases will be 12” split singles, scheduled for US release on August 16th:

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, by Terry Teachout (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009): 475pp. Hardcover, $30; paperback, $16.95.

If you plan to read just one book about Louis Armstrong, whose virtuosic cornet solos pushed jazz past rudimentary ensemble playing and launched his phenomenal career as an instrumentalist and singer, make it Pops. Teachout built it on brickwork laid by authors who preceded him, so you'll benefit from their research, as well as from narrative on 650 previously private reels of tape that Armstrong recorded and archived. Moreover, Teachout is a musician and music critic who offers opinions on his subject's discography.

Few people seem to realize that Armstrong (1901–1971) called himself LOU-iss. "All White Folks call me Louie," he once noted, and in some instances that may have been patronizing. In others, it was surely an instinctive response to the man's infectious warmth and informality.

Klipsch Icon KB-15

Klipsch recently launched their new Icon series, a family of relatively affordable loudspeakers to be sold exclusively in Best Buy stores throughout the US. The five models include two floorstanders (KF-28, $900/pair; KF-26, $700/pair), one bookshelf (KB-15, $249/pair), one center channel (KC-25, $249 each), and one surround (KS-14, $279 each). Matching SW-350 ($350) and SW-450 ($450) subwoofers are also available at Best Buy.

Said Mark Casavant, vice president of product development for Klipsch:

"Tons of body, weight, speed, great, big and open. How big can a flamenco guitar be?" read my notes from the sonically impressive YG Acoustics room. Speakers were the YG Kipod 2 ($49,000/pair). Associated electronics: Tenor 350M monoblocks (Cdn$100,000/pair), Tenor Line 1/Power 1 preamplifier (Cdn$75,000), Bryston BDP-1, dCS Scarlatti DAC, with cable by Kubala-Sosna.

The curvaceous Estelon Model XA loudspeaker ($43,900/pair), which uses a trio of ceramic drivers from Accuton (11" woofer, 7" midrange and 1.2" tweeter) was paired with electronics from Edge, including NL 12.2 amplifier ($24,388) and Signature preamplifier ($14,388), and a transport Drive 2 and DAC 2 from Neodio (pricing not available). Cabling was provided by Kubala-Sosna, and a Running Springs Audio Dmitri AC Power Conditioner ($4500) conditioned the power.

The sound in this room—we listened to the Beatles in high-res—was clean and fast and my notes include the thought "Like giving the Beatles a haircut and a shave."